


on top of the world up here

by kickedshins



Series: twitter prompt fills [1]
Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Ferris Wheels, First Dates, Fluff, Getting Together, Post-Canon, background ricky/esther, the tuc polycule is real and in this essay i will heavily allude to it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:34:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25713622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kickedshins/pseuds/kickedshins
Summary: “You know,” Rowan says, windswept and breathless, eyes bright with sunset and joy, “I was one of the first people to ride this thing. It’s not that old—not even a hundred.”“Practically an infant.”“Well.” Rowan waves her hand vaguely. “In the grand scheme of thi—whoa!”The ride pulls them down again, pulls them around its curves and over its hills, and Pete feels like a kid again, new to the city and begging for just one more go around. He feels a little bit unstoppable. Which is maybe a ridiculous thing to feel on an admittedly not that exciting roller coaster at eight on a June night, but he’s happy to feel it nonetheless.orRowan and Pete go to Coney Island for their first date.
Relationships: Misty Moore | Rowan Berry/Pete the Plug
Series: twitter prompt fills [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1864984
Comments: 10
Kudos: 33





	on top of the world up here

**Author's Note:**

> hi everyone! this is the first in a series of prompt fills from twitter that im doing. the prompt for this one was "on top of the world" so i took it a little literally. enjoy! :-)

“It’s like. A date. Right?” 

“Dude, I can hear you pacing through the phone,” Ricky says.

“I’m not pacing,” Pete says. He stops pacing. “Not anymore, at least.”

Ricky’s laugh is sweet and grounding, slightly grainy through the relatively crappy audio of Pete’s relatively crappy phone. “You said it was a date, didn’t you? Or she did?”

Pete throws his hands in the air for the viewing pleasure of the groups of people dotted along the boardwalk. “She says everything’s a date, man! I don’t know! That’s, like, one of those weird things that comes with being a charming lady, and also being hundreds of fuckin’ years old, and it’s _confusing_! She’s confusing! Why do I like confusing women!”

“I think all women are kind of confusing,” Ricky says.

“Yeah, well.”

“Hey.”

“Sorry for my tone,” Pete apologizes. “Just stressed out. I got dressed up for this shit.”

“You did?”

“You don’t need to sound so surprised,” Pete says defensively. “Not _dressed up_ dressed up. Like, we’re going to Coney Island, so I’m not in a suit, or anything. Shit—reminder to self, give you back that dress shirt you lent me the other day.”

“I already told you that you can ke—”

“No, no, I gotta be self-sufficient, and shit. I’m an adult. I’m gonna offer to pay for the tickets into the park.”

“Hey, is that Pete?” Esther’s voice is almost incomprehensible in the background, but gets clearer as she presumably gets closer to Ricky and to the phone. “Pete, she’s a multi-millionaire, don’t buy the tickets for her. Make her pay. Chivalry can only extend so far, and I’m not letting you extend it to the point of idiocy.”

“Hi, Esther.”

“Ricky, here, give me– babe, look, it’s date night tonight, right? I think– I think you should let me handle this one.”

“I’m good at advice,” Ricky insists.

“No, yeah, you are, it’s just. You’re really nice, and Pete sometimes needs his ass to be verbally whipped into gear.”

“Oh.” Ricky pauses for a moment, considering. “Aw, you think I’m really nice?”

“I do think you’re re—”

“Guys.” Pete says, clapping his hands next to the part of his headphones that he’s pretty sure takes in sound. “Please.”

“Sorry,” Esther says, not sounding at all sorry. “What’s it now? Worried Rowan isn’t gonna like the pattern on your shirt?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Pete says. “Now I’m freaking out about that! Esther, why’d you have to say something?”

She laughs, and it’s a sweet sound. Not like Ricky’s laugh, not sugar and the sky, but still just as centering. Esther’s laugh keeps Pete aware of himself. “I’m sure she’ll love it.”

“I just still don’t know if this is, like, a _date_ , you know? Like, she said it was a date, she said, _it’s a date!_ when I said, _hey, Rowan, wouldn’t it be cool if we went to Coney Island together_ , but does that mean it’s a date, or does that just mean that we’re going together, or—”

“Coney Island?” Esther asks.

“Judge me all you like. The coasters are fun.”

“Okay, just don’t come to Ricky’s place in tears when you throw up on Rowan’s shoes.”

“Hey!” Pete insists. “I am a man of strong constitution! I can hold my fuckin’ Nathan’s!”

“Mhmm. But, really, I think it is a date. Rowan and I aren’t exactly close—”

“Weren’t you over at her house the other day?” Ricky asks in the background.

“Just because I have, once or twice, been, y’know, _involved_ with her, does not mean we are bosom friends.”

“Ha,” Pete says, and he can feel Esther’s glare half a city away. “Sorry, sorry. Continue, please.”

“We’re not exactly close, but I’m not a stupid person. It’s pretty obvious from the way she acts around you that she more than enjoys your company. And it’s pretty obvious from the… well, the everything about you, that you more than enjoy hers. She wouldn’t say it was a date if it wasn’t a date. She might be a wealth hoarder and an egomaniac, but she’s not cruel.”

“You don’t have to speak so glowingly of her.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Esther says, smile audible through the phone. “Have fun tonight, Pete. Lemme give you back to Ricky.”

“Thanks, Esther.”

The phone gets passed from hand to hand, and then there’s the sound of Esther pressing a kiss to Ricky’s forehead, and then the sound of her footsteps fading away.

“Hi,” Ricky says. “I’m back. And Esther’s right.”

“She usually is.”

“She usually is,” Ricky agrees. “She likes you! Like, _like_ likes you. And you’re gonna have a great date night, and you’re not gonna vomit on her shoes.”

“Thanks for your vote of confidence,” Pete says drily. “I—oh, shit, I see her coming. Okay, thank you, thank Esther again for me, talk to you later, bye bye bye.”

“Love you, man.”

“L–love you too,” Pete says, and hangs up.

He catches a glimpse of Rowan approaching. He shoves his phone into his back pocket and clamors to tug his headphones out of his ears. “Oh, hey, Rowan! Hi! How are you!”

“Hi, Pete,” she says, giving him a smile. She looks beautiful in a black two-piece, flowy pants and a cropped tank top. She has her signature wide-brim hat perched atop her head, and it casts a long shadow away from the setting sun behind her. “I’m well. You look sharp.”

Pete does not, in fact, look sharp. He looks a bit sharper than usual, maybe, but nowhere near as put-together as Rowan does. Though, to be fair, that’s not any different than normal. He says, “You’re beautiful,” and it’s way more sincere than he wants it to be on a first date that he isn’t even positive is a date. And then, before he can stop himself— “This is– this is, like, a real date, right?”

Rowan laughs, clear and high as a bell, and for a second, Pete feels like an idiot. But then she rests her hand on his forearm and says, “Yes, it is,” and he can feel tension bleeding out from every joint in his body.

“Great. Uh. Well. I’ll buy the tickets.”

She lets him. He thinks he probably should have listened to Esther.

The rides are closing soon, so Rowan tugs him first to the Cyclone, and Pete thinks that for all his fronting, it’s probably good that he didn’t eat a hot dog before this, because even waiting in line, his stomach is turning. “Hey,” he says, turning to Rowan. “Don’t, uh, don’t take this the wrong way, but are you gonna be, you know, tall enough? For all the rides?”

Rowan’s mouth drops just a bit. She raises one scrutinizing eyebrow, and Pete can feel his heartrate increase in his chest. “Pete,” she responds. “The minimum height for the Cyclone is four and a half feet. I am taller than that.”

“No, yeah, I know, it’s just— you know what, forget I asked.”

“It’s okay,” Rowan says, lips quirking up into a smile. “It’s nice that you care enough to worry. But you do know I have magic, right? And that you do, too? And that we could likely circumvent that problem should it arrive, which I’m almost certain it won’t?”

“True!” Pete says. “Yeah, I’ll grant you that one. Too true.”

“C’mon,” Rowan laughs, pulling Pete forward in the line. Her fingers are cool and slender and wrapped around his wrist, and he is trying very hard to not blush, because this isn’t a new development. It’s not as if they’re chaste Puritans who don’t even touch. They’re friends, and they’ve held hands before. Hell, Rowan’s kissed Pete’s cheek about a hundred times.

Still, though. This feels like something a little bit more intimate. This feels like something Pete doesn’t want to back down from.

Soon enough, they’re strapped in. “Hands up,” Rowan says.

“Of course,” he returns. “Who do you think I am?”

The ride jolts them forward, and instinctively, Pete reaches for the bar across his lap. He pulls his hands away like it’s red hot and scalding.

“Coward,” Rowan taunts, but there’s nothing behind her voice other than affection.

Pete gives her a little kick to what he thinks is going to be her ankle but ends up being the heel of her shoe. “No fair.”

The ride pulls them over the edge of a precipice, and they go along, giddy and yelling like kids. Rowan has a hand planted on top of her hat to keep it in place, and Pete’s grateful he didn’t end up wearing his own stupid cowboy hat, because he knows he would have ended up losing it.

Before he knows it, Pete’s exiting the ride. He extends a hand for Rowan, and she takes it gratefully.

“How kind,” she says, pulling herself out of the cart.

“You know me,” Pete says. “I’m ethics central. Chivalry for days. Eons, even.”

“Wanna ride again?”

Pete does. So they do. And then they do it again, because as much fun as the metal loop-the-loop coasters might be, the Cyclone is something else entirely. It’s a little bit magical, Pete thinks. And, yeah, he means that in the Unsleeping City sort of way, but there’s something else to it. Something that would feel like Kingston even if he didn’t have powers. Something about the way it creaks, the way it shudders, the way it holds history in its rickety structure. It’s unequivocally, irrevocably New York.

“You know,” Rowan says, windswept and breathless, eyes bright with sunset and joy, “I was one of the first people to ride this thing. It’s not that old—not even a hundred.”

“Practically an infant.”

“Well.” Rowan waves her hand vaguely. “In the grand scheme of thi— _whoa!_ ”

The ride pulls them down again, pulls them around its curves and over its hills, and Pete feels like a kid again, new to the city and begging for just one more go around. He feels a little bit unstoppable. Which is maybe a ridiculous thing to feel on an admittedly not that exciting roller coaster at eight on a June night, but he’s happy to feel it nonetheless.

When they get out again, Pete checks his pockets. “Okay, I still have some tickets left, but not, like, a ton, so up to you what you wanna do with that.”

“I’m hungry,” Rowan says. “Let’s get a bite to eat. Afterward we can hit the ferris wheel and the boardwalk, if you’d like. Oh—Pete, your hair is just. It’s.”

“Is it bad?” he asks. 

“Borderline atrocious, yeah. Here, let me fix it for you.”

Pete tilts downwards just a bit, and Rowan, ever in her high heels, stands up a little straighter. Her fingers brush through his hair, and it’s so domestic and comforting that Pete legitimately thinks he might start crying. Little ways that people show they think that he matters mean… well, they mean much more than the world to him. He’s gone too long without a constant and loving support system, and even Rowan just fixing his hair reminds him that he has people who care for him. 

“Thanks,” he says.

“It’s nothing,” Rowan tells him. “You look much prettier now.

“Hey!”

She gives him a swift peck on the cheek. “Let me do another kindness for you. Let me buy dinner.”

Pete makes no move to stop her from doing so. 

Two orders of chicken fingers and fries later, Pete’s laughing uncontrollably as Rowan regales him with tales of Kingston’s early days being involved with the Unsleeping City. It’s easy to talk to her, comfortable to be with another person who knows what it’s like to not feel entirely at home in a body. And, sure, they’ve both had a few months to get used to themselves, but it’s still nice for Pete to feel like he can put down his guard around her. She does that naturally to him—she tears down his walls.

“Ferris wheel first or ice cream first?”

“Mint gum first,” Rowan says, whipping out a pack. “Don’t need ketchup taste in my mouth for the rest of the night.” She hands him a stick without him even asking. “And, hmm, ferris wheel, I think. We can close the night with ice cream and a stroll along the boardwalk. We can go down to the beach, too. It’s really nice at night when tourists aren’t crowding it.”

She slips her hand into his, and together, they walk to the massive wheel. It’s glowing brightly in the diminishing light, a beacon. If the Cyclone feels like Kingston’s magic, the ferris wheel feels like Pete’s.

“Yeah. You can’t look away,” Rowan murmurs, and for a second, Pete thinks she might be a mind reader. But then she explains, “Sometimes you don’t really notice when you’re speaking out loud to yourself,” and then it makes a bit more sense.

“Sorry?”

“Don’t be. It’s cute.”

“Oh. You’re welcome?”

Rowan laughs, and Pete thinks that her laugh is quickly becoming one of his favorite sounds. “I’m not feeling in a sharing mood tonight, are you?”

“What?”

“For the ride,” she says, gesturing at the wheel in front of the. “Two’s company, right? We don’t need anyone else coming along in our little car with us.”

“I’d agree with you there, yep,” Pete says. And then he starts to panic, just a little bit, because, sure, he’s been alone with Rowan before, but not recently. Not really. And, yeah, being together in a ferris wheel isn’t really a paragon of privacy, but it’s certainly more secluded than riding the Cyclone or eating on the boardwalk.

He blows a bubble with his gum and then spits it out into the nearest trashcan. Rowan, grinning something fierce, does the same.

As the wheel spins them upwards, Pete gets a good look at Coney Island. He hasn’t done this in a while—years, probably—and he’s forgotten how genuinely beautiful of a view it is. At night, the scene below him is dotted with the lights of the attractions and the little game booths, the ones that always cheat you out of your money and that are nearly impossible to avoid attempting to play again. And on the other side, there’s the beach. Beyond that, water, stretching out until it meets the dark of the sky.

The moon illuminates Rowan’s face, her sharp features, her silvery hair, and Pete feels his heart fall pretty much entirely out of his chest.

The ascent is spent mostly in amicable silence. It’s a good view, and it’s good company, and it’s rare that Pete can feel comfortable just being with someone, but the tapping of his foot against the floor is enough ambient noise for the time being. He watches the ground get further and further away, and he feels Rowan watching him. He feels her eyes. He feels her next to him.

The wheel grinds to a halt when they’re at the northmost point. “Someone’s getting on,” he says, pointing out the obvious.

“Yeah, that’s generally what happens on rides like these.”

He’s pretty sure he’s supposed to do something. That’s what happens on dates, right? Except he hasn’t been on a first date in a while, and he doesn’t know if he’s crossing any boundaries, and he’s kind of numb with fear and doesn’t know if he physically _can_ ask if he can kiss her, and his foot picks up speed, beating a rhythm against the floor of the cart they’re in to the point where he’s worried he might accidentally bring on a magic surge and send them both plummeting to the ground.

Rowan puts a hand on his knee. Pete clears his throat. 

Rowan starts to say something, but before she can even open her mouth all the way, Pete’s blurting out, “Do you wanna be my girlfriend? Which, now that I’m thinking about it, is kind of a childish word, and we’re both adults here, so maybe I should have said partner, or something, or asked if you wanted to be, like, romantically involved, or whatever, and Jesus Christ I’m rambling, but. I haven’t asked anyone out while sober in, uh, in a long time, and it is. Whew! It is a lot scarier than I remember. Being on top of the world up here gives me false confidence, I guess.”

“Pete,” Rowan says. “Pete, look at me.”

Pete looks at her. She’s smiling, lit by the moon, and he’s pretty sure it’s not just its light that’s causing her to glow. 

“If I kiss you, does that answer your question?”

“Not really?” Pete scratches at the back of his neck. “Like, I know you kiss other people and you’re not dating them—which, by the way, I am totally cool with, but that’s a conversation for after this one—so. No.”

“You raise a good point,” Rowan admits. “But, yes. I’d be delighted to be your girlfriend, no matter how childish of a word you might be worried about it being.”

“Fuckin’ _rad_ ,” Pete says, exhaling dramatically. 

Rowan bends over with amusement, and before he knows it, she’s kissing him. One hand is in his unruly hair, the other pressed against the seat next to him, and she’s halfway in his lap within the span of a second. He takes her waist with one hand and clutches her big hat to her head with the other, angling the brim upward so that it doesn’t hit him in the face.

Then the ferris wheel moves, and Rowan falls fully onto him, pressing him against the wall of the cart they’re in. It shakes a big, swinging from side to side, and Pete can feel her laughing into the crook of his neck. 

“Oh, Jesus,” she says, voice muffled.

He rubs small circles into her back. “You good?”

“More than good. I’m excellent. Just a little jolted by that, is all.” Rowan pulls herself back, situates herself a little more comfortably against him, and lifts his head up with a finger. “Now. Let’s make the most of our time remaining in here, shall we?”

“And ice cream afterward?”

Rowan presses a short kiss against his mouth again, soft, affectionate. “And ice cream afterward.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! kudos and comments are always appreciated and you can find me @commaperson on twitter :D please come talk to me abt the tuc polycule i have so many feelings abt this messy group of ppl most of whom are in some way involved w each other


End file.
